On the edge of the Tidal Basin, at the end of the National Mall, a new memorial has finally opened. Across the river from Thomas Jefferson, behind Abraham Lincoln, and down the walk from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr. has found a home.
This memorial is remarkable for more than its size, beauty, and grandeur. It is the first memorial of a non-president on the Mall. It is the first memorial of a black man. It is the first time that black Americans from all over the country can come to the Mall and see someone who looks like them, who tells their story, represented at the apex of American history. And it is the first time that all Americans can honor the memory of a man who was never voted into office, never walked the hallowed halls of the Capitol, never signed a fancy new law, waged a war, or spoke at a national political fundraiser. For the first time in history, Americans can walk the Mall and remember a man, and a time, when every man and woman was asked to stand up, march together, and change the world.
Martin Luther King Jr. is on the Mall because he called people to action. He called us to rally, to strike, to ride buses to Montgomery, and march to the Capitol. He called us to be brave in the face of unspeakable terrors, to risk our lives for justice, to rise above evil in the quest for equality. He didn’t make a speech and then send an email asking for money. He made a speech and then asked us to fight. And fight we did. And because it was our fight, because it was our lives, because we knew that every day Americans could change the country if we stood together, even after he was gone we kept on fighting, kept on marching, and we won.
And then we forgot.
When Barack Obama came into office we expected him to use us the way he had during the campaign. We expected to knock on doors for health reform, to make phone calls for education, and to tweet for taxes. And we would have. We believed in the power of the individual again. We believed that as young, passionate, ambitious Americans we could change our country one more time. But this time, instead of calling us to action, our great leader only asked for our credit card numbers.
Right now, as in 1965, our people are suffering. The highest unemployment rates in the country. The worst schools in the developed world. Lower net worth than any other race. Higher imprisonment rates. Unstoppable violence. Major cities run by black governments that can’t stop lying, cheating, and stealing long enough to notice that their cities are falling apart and their people are dying. And what are we doing about it? The NAACP is an impotent money pit that hasn’t been relevant since the Civil Rights Act was signed. Our “black leaders” are mouthpieces more concerned with selling books and scoring invitations to the White House than making any actual change, and our communities have been held down for so long they don’t know which way is up.
This is where the dream has brought us. Sure, we can sit at the lunch counter and sit in the front of the bus but we can’t afford the food and we don’t have anywhere to go.
So what are we going to do about it? Personally, I think we need a little bit of Booker T. Washington and a little bit of W. E. B. Du Bois. We need the 10 percent — the leaders, the professors, the writers and politicians. We need the celebrities and statesmen showing the world all that we can be. We need Barack proving that black men can be smart and dignified and powerful and respected and we need Michelle proving that black women can be beautiful and strong and gentle and educated and extraordinary. We need that, we do.
But we also need the rest of us to stand up. We need to start our own businesses and stop waiting for people to start them for us (Detroit, I’m talking to you). We need to be in the classrooms building up our students. We need to be on the police force, in the district attorney’s office, creating jobs, and bringing back our communities. We need to take care of ourselves and each other. We need to pick up where the Civil Rights movement left off. We need to do better than just remember Dr. King’s dream. We need to honor it. We need to build it. We need to live it.
Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy, now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28th, 1963
Now is the time.
What YOU Can Do
To get involved, join your local branch of the NAACP, volunteer in a classroom, give to Donor’s Choose or a local educational non-profit, mentor, be a Big Brother or Big Sister, coach Little League. Write your congressman. There are thousands of ways to get involved. Find yours.
kat calvin is a lawyer, a writer, and a businesswoman who is hopeful for the future of her people.
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